What's up, Marketers! This is Aazar.
This newsletter is about leveling up your paid growth marketing skills by analyzing the best brands' paid strategy, tactics, positioning, and value props.
This newsletter is divided into:
Sharing what I've learned
Sometimes sharing some other performance marketers’ lessons with you
And I analyze & compare the best ads on the internet (this issue)
BEST LINKS OF THE WEEK (on popular demand)
My favorite finds
Bonus gifts from me:
I scrolled through Primal Queen's entire ad account. Over 1,600 ads.
The thing that stood out wasn't the volume. It was how different each ad feels. And how well each one works on millennial women specifically.
Claymation with custom songs. TikTok reels with no voiceover. Yap videos where the creator doesn't breathe for 25 seconds. Skits disguised as friend conversations. Founder stories that open with lines so extreme you physically cannot look away.
If you're selling to millennials right now (especially in health and wellness), these are the formats that are actually converting.
Girlies talking to girlies. That's the tone across every ad. And it's deliberate. When your audience feels like the ad was made for them by someone like them, trust kicks in almost instantly.
That's insider bias. And Primal Queen uses it in every single format.
I broke down the psychology behind their best-performing ads and turned it into a playbook you can steal.
Let's get into it.
Ad 1: The "Founder Origin" Story (Podcast Format)
"I was about to be admitted to a mental asylum." That's the hook. The product shows up as the ending of a survival story.
The Principle: The Reluctant Founder
People trust founders who sound like they had no other choice.
The psychology: when a product feels discovered out of desperation instead of manufactured for profit, it triggers "authenticity bias." We believe people more when their story sounds like something they'd rather not have gone through.
Why It Works
The hook earns the first 3 seconds through shock.
Every failed attempt (keto, collagen, meal plans) makes the final solution more believable.
Podcast format feels like overhearing a conversation, not watching an ad.
How To Use This
Start your founder story at the lowest point. When things were falling apart.
List what failed before your product existed. Each failure adds credibility.
If your origin has a cringe or funny moment, lead with it.
Ad 2: The Claymation + Custom Song Format
This entire ad is a song. Lyrics walk through symptoms, discovery, product, and guarantee. Claymation visuals keep your eyes locked while the music keeps your ears hooked.
The Principle: Dual-Channel Encoding
When your brain processes info through two senses at once, retention goes way up. The psychology: music bypasses ad resistance completely. Your brain processes music differently than speech. People skip pitches. They don't skip songs.
Why It Works
The song carries the full sales narrative without feeling like selling.
Claymation stops the scroll on its own.
It feels like entertainment, so people rewatch.
How To Use This
Write your ad script, then turn it into a song using tools like Suno. Structure: pain, discovery, product, trust layer.
Pair it with unexpected visuals. Claymation, animation, storyboards.
If your audience can hum your ad, you've won.
Ad 3: The Yap Video
Della talks at full speed for 25 seconds before her first pause. Reads follower DMs on camera. Casually drops that she Googled beef organs herself.
The Principle: Unpolished = Unfakeable
The messier the delivery, the more real it feels.
The psychology: she Googled the solution herself. That activates "self-discovery bias." We trust conclusions people reached on their own far more than conclusions they were handed.
Why It Works
Nonstop pace makes you lean in because you'll miss something.
Real DMs on camera is social proof that doesn't feel staged.
Tangents and mess-ups make it impossible to replicate with AI.
How To Use This
Find a creator who naturally yaps. Give them 3 talking points and hit record.
Have them read real customer messages on camera.
Tools worth checking out:
Atria: You're only as good an advertiser as your swipe file. Atria saves and analyzes ads, with AI to create concepts and scripts in seconds. Try it for free. It offers ad analytics, a swipe file, an AI creative strategist, collaboration tools, asset management, and competitor tracking. I’m not an ad genius, but Atria makes me one.
Some of the latest features I am in love with.
AI chat that’s basically media buyer and analyst on my finger tips.
and AI tagging to easily find what’s trending and what to double down on:
P.S. Now you can also automatically create image ads with Atria in multiple languages.
Ad 4: The TikTok Aesthetic (Text + Music, Zero Voiceover)
Girl at a beach. Music playing. Text frame by frame. Nobody speaks. Hook: her ferritin was at 8 when it should be at 100. Product doesn't appear until after 8 seconds.
The Principle: Let The Viewer Read, Not Listen
Text-on-screen puts the viewer in control.
The psychology: when nobody is talking at you, your brain doesn't activate its "sales defense." Reading feels like a choice. Listening to a pitch feels like an intrusion.
Why It Works
Aspirational visuals earn attention before any product info appears.
Music carries emotion. Text carries message. Each does one job.
Delaying the product lets the viewer get invested first.
How To Use This
Open with a specific number. "My ferritin was at 8" hits harder than "I was low on iron."
Use music for mood. Text for selling. Don't make one do both.
Ad 5: The Transformation Story (Lookmaxing Format)
Opens with her overweight photo. Doctor gave her six months or she'd end up like her grandma who died young. Every failed attempt plays out before the product.
The Principle: The Exhausted Buyer
Your best customer isn't someone new to the problem. It's someone who tried 4 things and is out of options.
The psychology: listing solutions they've already failed with triggers deep recognition. "She's describing my life" is what breaks down skepticism.
Why It Works
Real stakes (doctor's deadline, grandma dying young) make this feel life-or-death.
Every failed attempt mirrors what the viewer has probably tried.
Transformation photo pays off the buildup with visual proof.
How To Use This
List alternatives your audience has tried. Real names, real prices, real timelines.
Give the story a deadline. "I had six months" creates urgency that "I wanted to lose weight" never will.
This script structure is plug-and-play. Steal it.
I’d also like to thank CreativeOS. All these image ads in this newsletter were created with the help of CreativeOS.
A creative strategy thrives on more than a single standout ad; it excels through rapid execution, consistent output, iterative processes, and systematic harmony.
That's exactly what CreativeOS is built for.
Gain instant access to thousands of high-performing ad, landing page, and email templates from top brands. Start with proven structures, customize, launch, and move on to the next variation.
It's the fastest way to produce more winning creative without burning out your team or sacrificing quality. Whether you're testing new angles, scaling what's working, or building repeatable creative workflows — CreativeOS is the system that makes it happen.
Ad 6: The (Exaggerated) Skit Format
One girl plays both roles, switching frames. One lists symptoms. The other responds: "Ferritin." Each symptom gets acted out on screen.
The Principle: The Informed Friend
People want to overhear a friend who already figured it out.
The psychology: repeating one word after every symptom is "spaced repetition." By the end, the viewer has heard "ferritin" six times. Every symptom now points to one word. That word leads to the product.
Why It Works
Acting out symptoms makes the viewer self-diagnose in real time.
The rhythm (symptom, answer, symptom, answer) keeps attention.
It educates without lecturing.
How To Use This
Pick the one word your product should own. Build the skit around repeating it.
Act out the problems visually. Don't just describe them.
Ad 7: The Hybrid (Text + Music into Testimonial)
First half: text overlays with music listing pre-menopause symptoms. Second half: music stops, she talks to camera about losing 50 pounds. Two formats in one ad.
The Principle: Format Shift Resets Attention
When the format changes mid-ad, the brain treats it as new content.
The psychology: the text half filters for the right audience. The testimonial half converts them. The shift mimics "is this me?" to "here's someone who fixed it."
Why It Works
Symptom list makes viewers self-select. If they relate, they stay.
Switching from text to voice creates a natural emotional arc.
Before photos give proof before she even speaks.
How To Use This
Use the first half to qualify your viewer. List problems as text with music.
Switch formats at the midpoint. The shift resets attention.
Key Takeaways
Format diversity is their moat. One format fatigues. Seven keep feeding the algorithm fresh creative.
Every ad is disguised as something else. A song. A FaceTime call. A skit. The ad that doesn't look like an ad gets watched.
Insider bias runs through everything. The audience never feels targeted. They feel included. Trust is instant.
They never explain the product first. They make you feel a problem first. The product only shows up after you're emotionally invested.
"Ferritin" appears across multiple formats. One word, repeated everywhere, until the audience associates every symptom with it. That's category ownership.
They stack failed alternatives before the product. Each one the viewer recognizes makes the final answer harder to reject.
Format shifts inside a single ad reset attention. The brain treats the change as new content. Watch time goes up.
The founder story starts with a big problem, then a woman eating raw beef liver while her friend screams. The more uncomfortable the origin, the more believable the brand.
Happy Growing with Paid Social,
Aazar Shad
Since this newsletter is free, I do it to follow my curiosity. But I’d love it if you could leave some feedback so I know if I am helping you or not.
Here’s how I can help you, whenever you are ready:
Work with me to get you growth from paid marketing. Book a call here. I’m open to more clients now.
